This is the third installment in a series of reports from several countries looking at the question of how to cope with China--a nation that has rapidly grown into a military and economic power, while also ruling its people with an iron fist.

While China is going flat-out preparing to host the Olympic Games in August, it also is constructing a modern athletics stadium in the Laotian capital of Vientiane.

The stadium, about 3,000 kilometers south of Beijing, will be the venue for the Southeast Asian Games, scheduled for December 2009.

The Southeast Asian Games is the region's largest biennial sports event. Host country Laos is the poorest member of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, so it turned to China to handle the construction of the venue--and to foot the bill. A Chinese financial institute provided 1 billion dollars for the stadium.